nature

There are a lot of wonders in the world and among them are wildlife species, such as bears, mountain goats, wolves, elk, and deer. Most people think that there is an abundance of wildlife species in the world, but the truth is, their numbers are dwindling and if nothing is done about it, these species might become endangered and extinct. Animals become endangered all the time and people are not aware about it. Thankfully, more and more preservation programs have been established to ensure that these animals are protected, bred, and well-taken care of. These preservation programs motivate and increase the awareness of the public regarding the proper management of natural resources.

What Is Wildlife Conservation?

Wildlife conservation is the attempt to protect endangered animal and plant species, along with their natural habitat. The main objective of this practice is to make sure that their habitats will be preserved so that the future generations of both wildlife and human can enjoy it. Additionally, wildlife conservation aims to raise awareness regarding the importance of wildlife and wilderness.

Today, there are now government bureaus and organizations that help promote different wildlife conservation areas. The government also aims to implement certain policies that are specifically created to protect the animals.

It is essential to take actions to protect wildlife from extinction. By doing so, we do not only ensure their survival, but also the diversity of the ecosystem. As a result, it will help improve the ecological health of the earth. Listed below are some of the reasons why wildlife protection is essential.

Promote Biodiversity

Biodiversity is essential for a healthy and functional ecosystem. If wildlife is extracted from its natural habitat, the delicate balance of the ecosystem will be disturbed which will then lead to disastrous results. For instance, there is a wide diversity of species living in a tropical rain forest. If any species should become extinct, the food chain will be disrupted affecting all the species. For this reason, promoting biodiversity is one of the main reasons why we should protect wildlife.

Beneficial For Humans

One can learn a lot from animals which can benefit the human race. For instance, a lot of medicines have been derived from the chemicals produced by animals. These medicines are then used to help cure various health conditions, such as heart diseases, disorders, and other illnesses. In fact, based on the statistics provided by the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, more than 25% of the medicinal prescriptions given every year contain chemicals from animals. For instance, there are scientists who are studying venom from the pit viper to cure the symptoms of Melanoma, and the venom from a tarantula can help fight neurological disorders.

Wildlife protection is essential because if the animal is gone, it will be impossible to study and learn from them. Unfortunately, a lot of wildlife has disappeared from earth due to human activities, such as the Bali tiger, Mexican grizzly bear, and the Japanese wolf.

Conservation Of Natural Habitat

When we conserve and protect the natural habitat of wildlife species, we enrich our planet. To do so, we must keep the animals in their natural place. Conservation of natural habitats will also be beneficial for humans since it helps keep the essential watersheds intact and ensuring clean, fresh water.

Today, there are now wildlife preservation programs wherein they allow the animals to roam freely in their natural habitat. Some of these programs also allow the animals to interact with humans. This is beneficial since it educates the people and raises awareness regarding the importance of protecting these wildlife species.

These are just some of the reasons why everyone should work together to protect the different species of wildlife. Thankfully, there are now national parks that provide the best natural habitats for various species.graduate degree in science, is a professor emeritus at the Université Paris-Sud (Orsay). He is a former President of the Société Nationale de Protection de la Nature, Honorary President of the Société Française d'Ecologie and a distinguished member of the World Conservation Union. He also acts as an expert for the United Nations Environment Programme. He has published numerous academic works, in particular a two-volume Traité d'Écologie (Éléments d'Écologie), edited by Édiscience International….

SUMMARY / SYNOPSIS

Why protect nature?

[François Ramade, 01/01/2005]

Why protect nature?

31/08/2008 3:09 pm

The preservation of intact ecosystems and natural unspoiled regions is among the most urgent tasks facing our generation. Its importance is primordial among the multiple imperatives that determine the future of a post-industrial society capable of ensuring sustainable development….

We can start out by asking ourselves how to justify the protection of nature, and why we must replace some biocenoses with human intervention, even though similar questions can seem inappropriate to any reader of this work.

Conservation of species

Why should we worry about the fate of endangered species and preserve as much biodiversity as possible?

Arguments in favour of such a proposition can fall into several categories of a scientific, economic, or cultural nature.

a) Scientific Justifications for Conservation

There are multiple scientific reasons. Too many species of animals, and sometimes plants, were destroyed in different ways in the past, and indeed this continues today, without any biologist having had the time to study them. Worse yet, an immense number of living species, greatly exceeding a minimum of one million taxa in the most pessimistic estimate (Wilcox, 1998), is condemned to disappear over the next half-century in the only tropical rain forests in the world if the current rates of deforestation that began in the mid 1980s continue.

The catastrophic consequences of the rapid disappearance of such a considerable number of living species are evident on a scientific level. Not only will this irreparable loss be felt in the taxonomy domain – the majority of these species have not yet even been described – and in the evolutionary one, but it will also have serious consequences for fundamental research, since some rare species with remarkable biological particularities enable spectacular advances in the understanding of numerous essential biological phenomena….

Moreover, one of the major ecological aspects specific to living species that justifies their conservation involves their role in the maintenance of fundamental ecological processes. In some cases, the extinction of a single species, by altering the homeostatic mechanisms of an ecosystem, is likely to disrupt a biogeochemical cycle or any other fundamental ecological process in a way that damages the entire ecosystem….

In addition … it is absolutely indispensable to conserve controls (of continental environments) for future scientific research done in the interest of coming generations. These generations will certainly need rare species to restore the ecosystems damaged by their ancestors’ lack of foresight.

b) Economic Justifications for Conservation

The protection of the biosphere’s animal and plant gene pools is, moreover, essential for other economic reasons that are just as fundamental.

In reality, the major economic role that wild species have played until now, and their still considerable potential in terms of scientific, agricultural and industrial innovation, presents a decisive argument in favour of their protection.

Even a summary analysis of this aspect of the protection of nature demonstrates just how necessary conservation of species and ecosystems is, if humanity desires sustainable development.

As the UICN already emphasized in 1980, “The preservation of genetic diversity is a gauge of the future and a necessary investment to maintain and improve agricultural, forestry, and halieutic production to keep options open for the future, and to resolve unfavourable changes that arise in the environment …”

c) Aesthetic and Cultural Justifications for Conservation

Numerous other arguments could actually be found to justify the protection of flora and fauna as well as the ecosystems of which they are part. These are recreational, aesthetic, cultural and ethical….

Despite the importance of the diverse socio-economic considerations found above, the protection of nature seems even more indispensable to us due to its irreplaceable aesthetic, cultural and educational role. Splendours of natural life interest an increasingly larger part of the public.

One example is the incessant growth in the number of wildlife photography enthusiasts or, better still, the unprecedented success of mainstream press publications dedicated to flora and fauna, which testifies to the average person’s increasingly strong interest in the natural environment. Popular magazines quickly figured out how to make the most of this recent awareness of the aesthetic and cultural value of the living world.

“Ecotourism” has developed for some years, especially in Central America, and is essentially practiced by amateur naturalists who have a passion for the observation of tropical flora and fauna….

d) Ethical Justifications for Conservation

Finally, we can ask ourselves, what gives humanity the right to commit the ultimate genocide, which is unprecedented in the history of the universe, and will lead to the destruction of millions of living species?

In times where the “right to be different” is often evoked indiscriminately …, why does it only apply to our species?

It should be noted, moreover, that the respect for all living beings is formulated in a way that is, at the very least, implicit in all the great human religions….

This principal of respect that men owe to different forms of life was reaffirmed with solemn ceremony over the course of the last two decades by the officials representing the great monotheistic religions, generally even before the Convention on Biological Diversity was enacted in Rio.

On the whole, we are now witnessing the emergence of a new philosophical and particularly ethical concept, that of the right of each plant and animal species to survive, along with the consequence that it’s humanity’s duty to preserve that right.

Conservation of Natural Species: Protected Ecosystems and Landscapes

The preceding justifications for nature conservation apply to all highly complex ecological systems: habitats, ecosystems, and landscapes. The protection of these ecological entities is justified overall by the same reasons as those for the preservation of biodiversity…THE revival of interest over the Penang Hill project proposed in 1990 has again focused attention on the benefits of preserving the environment, contrasted with the pressures for approving development projects.

Media reports in the past week have given differing accounts of the sequence of events in the early 1990s surrounding the Penang Hill project.

The project was given the go-ahead in a memorandum of understanding by the state government and the developer in 1990 and then stalled by the Department of Environment’s rejection of the environment impact assessment reports submitted by the proponent.

Subsequently, the state government decided that a local plan for the Penang Hill area should be drawn up instead of implementing the project, and invited the developer to come up with new proposals, if it so wished, after the local plan was finalised.

These are the bare bones of the project’s history. But the real story lies in the campaign by local groups to “save Penang Hill”.

That campaign raised the awareness of a generation of Penangites and Malaysians about the importance of forests, especially in hill and mountain areas, and more especially if they are water catchment areas.

There are vital social and environment lessons from the whole episode, which may need reviving for a new generation.

Most local people involved in the campaign wanted to save the hill to preserve the quiet and serene ambience, having had fond memories of the times they spent in hikes, holiday stays in the rented government bungalows, and simply enjoying the breathtaking views of the island and the forests.

Quite a few wrote or spoke of how they had proposed to their spouses on romantic evenings up the hill.

Scientists prepared reports on the environmental importance of the hill in cloud formation and maintaining the rainfall pattern, and in retaining and recycling water which is captured and supplied to the urban population.

If the hill were damaged, the supply of water to the island would be affected.

The hill also conserves soil, preventing landslides and preventing soil eroding into rivers that could otherwise block the natural drainage system.

Without this function, there would be greater flooding downstream in the town areas.

These environmental and social services that forested hill areas provide are often invisible and under-appreciated, until disturbance to the ecology by logging or a project causes a range of problems.

These include soil erosion, river and drain blockage, floods, landslides and reduced flow to reservoirs and to household water supply.

For years, ecologists have struggled to get recognition for the value of the “environmental services” that nature, left to itself, provides, and for these to be fully accounted for when assessing the costs and benefits of a proposed commercial project.

The “green economy” initiative that is being given a boost through the UN Summit on Sustainable Development next year (popularly dubbed Rio Plus 20), seeks among other things to raise awareness worldwide about the economic value of nature that would be wiped out if forests, water catchment areas, river and coastline systems are destroyed.

Recent studies have compared the benefits of conserving or sustainably using natural resources to the revenues from exploiting nature in a careless way that maximises short-term profits.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment pointed out that biodiversity (such as forests and mangroves) provides provisioning services (food, crops, water, medicines), regulating services (filtration of pollutants by wetlands, climate regulation, pollination and protection from disasters), supporting services (soil formation, photosynthesis, nutrient cycling), and cultural services (recreation, education, spiritual and aesthetic values).

Maintaining or augmenting the stocks of natural resources enables the continuous flows of these ecological services, while depleting stocks implies reduced flows of services in future, with adverse effects on human well-being.

Examples of the economic benefits of conserving or sustainably using nature are given in a UN environment report on the economics of biodiversity:

> A 2007 study in Southern Thailand on conversion of mangrove into commercial shrimp farms showed net private economic returns of US$1,220 per hectare per year, while the cost of restoration after the pond is abandoned after five years of exploitation was US$9,318 per ha.

But the estimated benefits of retaining the mangroves instead totalled US$12,392/ha, comprising US$584/ha for collected forest products, US$987/ha for providing nursery for off-shore fisheries and US$10,821/ha for coastal protection against storms.

> The Te Papanui Conservation Park in New Zealand provides the Otago region with water for free that would cost NZ$136mil had water to be brought in from elsewhere. The park is a natural water catchment supplying NZ$31mil of water flows for hydroelectricity, NZ$93mil for urban water supply and NZ$12mil for irrigating 60,000ha of farmland.

> Halving deforestation rates by 2030 would reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 1.5 to 2.7 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide per year, thereby avoiding damages from climate change estimated at US$3.7 trillion in net present value terms. This does not include the many other benefits of forest ecosystems.

> The over-exploitation of fish stocks has reduced income from global marine fisheries by US$50bil annually compared with a more sustainable fishing scenario.

The lesson is that the usefulness to society of conserving nature or making use of resources sustainably should be given its proper weight in making decisions on the alternative uses of land and natural resourcesThere has been much discussion about whether we should put a financial value on nature as a way of trying to preserve our world’s precious resources and landscapes. While George Monbiot has argued in the Guardian that it’s a bad idea, Tony Juniper made the opposite case – that we must try it. As an environmental economist, my gut feeling is that ‘natural capital accounting’ could play an important role in protecting natural environments and become much more important than reporting and valuing carbon emissions.

World economies depend on the goods and services provided by nature; if they are irreversibly damaged then quality of life would not only deteriorate but our existence might be jeopardised. Unfortunately, the ‘subsidy’ provided by nature in terms of ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration, water and nutrient cycling is rarely taken into account in decision making processes. So why not put a value on nature?

Some people have ethical objections against this: nature is too important to be valued and reduced to a financial commodity. However, this means that we are favouring the status quo – treating nature as fair game due to its low or non-existent value in the prevalent political and economic system. In the market system (whether we like it or not) the value of nature is invisible because people do not recognise the goods and services it provides and therefore have no incentives to protect them (the market value of protected rainforest is close to zero when compared to agriculture or timber products that could be obtained from clearing the forest). The mechanisms both for rewarding stewardship and for penalising degradation of the environment often do not exist. This leads to valuation asymmetry with benefits of economic activities being always clearly demonstrated while costs of degradation are not. Not surprisingly this will always work against conservation or improvement in the quality of environmental resources. With valuation, nature is incorporated into decision making, leading to a more equal playing field that would not penalise and disqualify environmental protection from the start. Protecting the environment becomes not only an ethical decision but also one that makes economic sense.

Valuing environmental resources does not imply putting a price tag on butterflies and bees. Instead, it is about estimating the value of natural resources to humankind - measuring the preferences of individuals for environmental improvement /conservation, or loss of wellbeing because of environmental degradation /loss of environmental assets. Natural capital accounting gives us a way of understanding, communicating and demonstrating the value of the subsidy received from nature. This knowledge and awareness can incentivise businesses and societies to safeguard it. Of course, this shouldn’t be used as a tool that justifies trading off or eradicating resources due to their low perceived value. We should always rely on law, policy and public opinion to protect ecosystems of high cultural, spiritual or aesthetic significance.

Just as reporting of greenhouse gas emissions is not contributing to climate change, valuing nature is not going to destroy it. If we want to be good stewards of the environment we have to be practical enough to embrace valuation and realistic enough to understand what the numbers mean.

After all, valuation is merely a tool and good workmen never blame their tools.